


I Love You

by fabricsofteners



Category: Original Work
Genre: Apocalypse, Falling In Love, M/M, Original Character(s), Zombie Apocalypse, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:46:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23547100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fabricsofteners/pseuds/fabricsofteners
Summary: this was written for my creative writing class n i just want it on. the internet.
Relationships: OC/OC
Kudos: 3





	I Love You

**Author's Note:**

> this was written for my creative writing class n i just want it on. the internet.

**The apocalypse is lonely** . When the most people you’ve seen in about two months have been the undead trying to quite literally eat you alive, you end up a little bit touch starved. Not that there’s really anyway to satiate that starvation. In all reality the most you can do is keep surviving. ‘Cause the only attention the dead get nowadays is a blade or projectile to the skull. 

I wasn’t always some loner who spent all his time killing already dead people. Three months ago, I was, I’d like to imagine, a pretty popular guy. I had friends, close ones. Of course, then the world went to Hell. 

Some scientist by the name of Eugene thought he had figured out a cure to cancer… he hadn’t. Instead, those he gave the treatment died and came back, and after that the dead started walking, something about it being airborne. We’re all infected, death just activates it, basically. Last I heard they killed Eugene when he thought he solved another cure. It failed, too. 

That was three month ago. In just three measly little months, I'd found an abandoned farmhouse with animals still occupying the pens, crops growing in the spaces and seeds left behind. 

And thus, I’d taken over the farm, building up a little garden-esque empire with all the left behind chickens and cows. Hoping they breed and planning to kill for food when they get too old. So far, I haven’t reached that point, but I know if I live long enough it will come eventually. 

**Maybe an extra week** into my three months of solitude from living humans, I wake up in that farmhouse I’d made into my own, stretching. I glance out the window, checking the fence line. I’d built up some mediocre traps to keep the dead away from the animals, securing wooden spikes to the fences that would stop the dead before they got to close, holding them there until I was able to take them out for good. 

On the spikes now there was just one, it looked like it was a woman before she died. I decide in the moment to leave her until after I finished my morning “routine.” Before anything else, I get dressed and put my knife in the sheath before leaving the bedroom and quickly taking the stairs two at a time until I reached downstairs, where I walk to the kitchen. I pull open the cabinet, pulling out a box of cereal only to find it almost empty. 

I sigh but pull it out anyway. I remember seeing what looked like a rundown Rural King before I found the farm and at the time it hadn’t seemed helpful, but now I’m running low on chicken feed and my own. I resign to hope that others thought the same and it’ll be untouched, I’ll head to check it out after breakfast and the rest of the routine. 

After my dry cereal and rationed water, I stand and use a bit more of the same water bottle to brush my teeth. Then, I turn to the kitchen closet and pull out the almost empty bag of bird feed, slinging it over my shoulder. I hadn’t been a gym rat before this, nor had I been too weak, but after all this fighting for my life and heavy lifting I definitely consider myself a bit more buff. 

I open the door and walk over to the chicken coop, pulling open the hatch and pouring the rest of the feed in. Immediately, most of them run over and start pecking it up. It’s a large coop, and the hatch is on the side, a slide like thing carrying the seed down. It's painted like a barn, but from age and rain the paint’s begun to chip. 

After closing the hatch, I turn to check on the cows, jumping over the fence to open the barn doors. They come out slowly, but happily chew on the grass. I’ll close the doors before bed, after herding them all back inside. I pat one, an older male, on the back, offering him a “Good morning.” 

After making sure everyone’s alright I hop back over, and finally turn to the groaning dead woman stuck to my fence. I take my knife out of the sheath, and abruptly stab her in the eye. She immediately goes silent and limp. I’ll move her later. 

For now, I do a full perimeter check of the entire house before I go back inside, this time grabbing my crossbow from the hanger by the door, and unlock the door. I pat my pockets, finding the key to the house that had been hidden in a fake rock when I showed up. I was actually going to use the rock to break in, but it worked out better. I sling the crossbow over my back, walk outside and lock the door behind me. 

The Rural King is only a mile or two away and only takes me maybe thirty minutes before I’m standing in front of it. The sight of the broken-down sliding doors already open is nerve-wracking, maybe someone has already raided it, but I walk in anyway. Even if it has been, chances are they didn’t take chicken seed. As long as I have chickens, I can kill them for my own food. 

I step inside, grabbing a cart from the rows of them. I’ll push it home, so I don’t have to take everything back by hand. I push it along with me, listening closely for any sign of anyone, dead or alive. As I walk, I’m happy to see not much is touched and I’m able to put things like more cereal and dried fruits in the cart, along with two bags of bird seed on the bottom. 

I turn down an aisle labeled ‘chips and cookies’ and stop in my tracks. There’s someone at the end. I stare a moment before slowly slinging the crossbow over my shoulder and into my arms, aiming it just in case. They’re staring at the racks, but I can’t tell if it’s in contemplation or because they’re dead and have nothing better to do. 

I whistle to get their attention, getting them to jump and turn towards me, hands above their head, “I’m not dead!” It’s a man, I can’t get his exact age, maybe twenties or early thirties, “Livin’ guy, livin’!” 

“Alright, alright!” I reply, taking care to keep my voice lower, “Don’t yell, who knows what’s in here. You alone?” I lower my crossbow but don’t take my hand off the trigger. If he tries anything, I’ll kill him myself. 

“Yes, just me,” He lowers his voice, though in the otherwise silent store it carries. I guess if nothing else it won’t be hard to kill the dead, already loaded and ready. And I’m not afraid to use good ol’ Aisle Man as bait, “Are you?” 

“Yeah, I am too. Come forward, I can’t see you,” I call, and he listens, coming forward slowly, hands still up. It looks like he has a weapon on his right leg in a sheath. I can’t tell what it is, but at least he’s armed. 

He finally steps into a light coming through one of the spotlights in the roof. My twenties guess seems right, he looks young. Maybe a bit younger than me, twenty-five or so. He looks afraid, but, an attractive guy. I drop my bow entirely, sighing, “What’s your name?” 

“Mason,” he says, finally lowering his arms, “Mason Flores. Yours'?” 

I take the ammo out of my bow, placing it back into the quiver with the others, “Logan Pricefield.” 

He nods and steps forward again. I don’t respond but do keep an eye on his hands, just in case he reaches for his weapon, “Where you stayin'?” 

I tilt my head in the direction of the farm, “House couple miles that way. You holed up here?” 

He shakes his head, “Nah, I just wander. Stopped here for supplies,” he looks down at my cart, “You eat seed or you have birds?” 

“Latter. Last owner left her animals to die when she did. Figure they’ll make a solid source of food eventually,” he's holding a basket but all it has in it is a jar of peanut butter and some other random cans, “You look like you have no idea what’s perishable and what isn’t, bud.” 

He smiles sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand, “That obvious? One of my first runs, usually the places I squat in are stocked but when I’m on the road I might as well have some of my own stuff, ya’ know?” 

I nod, “Yeah, my place is running low. ‘s why I’m here.” 

We fall silent and to move my arms I dump a pack of chocolate chip cookies in my cart. I deserve something sugary. 

“You got a spare room?” He asks, and I pause before I respond, thinking, “Sorry, that’s probably a lot for a stranger to ask, my bad, Logan-” 

“How many have you killed?” I ask, “Living people, I mean.” 

He stares at me, shocked, “Just... just one.” 

“Why’d you do it?” I ask a second question, finally slinging my bow back over my shoulder. 

“Oh,” he nods, “Fair question, then. It was because he was bitten and asked me to. We were together until it happened.” 

I nod, “Fair enough. Finish this run with me and you can stay the night if you really want to, I have a ton of spare rooms. Open to you as you don’t seem the type to stab me in cold blood, ya’ know?” I chuckle, “And you need help getting better food desperately.” 

He chuckles at that, but nods, “Alright.” 

The rest of the time we’re in the store we talk, sharing stories of where we were before the apocalypse, when it started, and he gives a few from his travelling. He was a Taco Bell employee. I told him about my time as a teacher. 

Stories about our worst or most scary experiences with the dead. 

He’s good conversation, Mason. Good company. He’s good people. So far, anyway. 

**The next morning** , I wake up, partially expecting to have been robbed overnight, but instead I wake to find Mason in my kitchen, pouring two bowls of cereal. 

“You doin' my house chores for me now?” I ask with a smile as he hands it to me, “Or is this poisoned?” 

He shakes his head and sits across from me at the table smiling too, “Gotta earn my stay from last night, huh?” 

I chuckle, taking a bite of the dry honey nut cheerios, “Don’t worry about it. It’s nice to have some company around, really. Cows don’t make good conversation.” 

He chuckles too, “Sounds about right. Neither do the dead, truth be told.” 

We eat in silence after that, myself just enjoying the feeling of another person there and him probably doing the same. He doesn’t leave after our shared breakfast and he walks with me around as I let the cows out and feed the chickens, cutting my perimeter check in half as he does one side and I do the other. 

It’s… nice. A change from how lonely things usually are. 

**Mason doesn’t leave that evening** either. Or the next day. I don’t ask him to. I enjoy him being there. I’d go as far as to call us friends now. 

Four days since he started staying, he asks me from the porch we're sat on, watching the cows graze, “Have I overstayed my welcome at this point?” 

I shake my head, “I don’t think it’ll expire anytime soon. Stay as long as you want.” 

He laughs and shakes his own head, “Don’t tell me that, I’ll never leave.” 

I laugh, too, looking down at the ground a second before back up at him, “Then don’t leave.” 

After that, slowly, very slowly, I lean over and I rest my head on his shoulder. He tenses, but before I’m able to move back, he puts one arm over my shoulders, holding me there, and leaning his head on my own. Quietly, almost inaudibly, he speaks. 

“Maybe I won’t.” 

He doesn’t. For days, that turn to weeks, that turn to months. Four, I think. Until the day we’re sat on our couch, once again leaning on one another as we’ve done so often since that first time. He’s humming quietly. 

I look at our laps, seeing his hand resting on his leg, palm up. Without thinking too hard about it, I move my own hand and hold his. I close my eyes before I speak, intertwining our fingers as well, “Hey, Mason?” 

He stops humming, pausing a moment. His hand moves slightly in my own, though he doesn’t let go. Quite the contrary, he squeezes it tighter, “Yeah, Lo?” I smile softly at the nickname. 

He runs his thumb over my own in a comforting manner, “Are we… dating?” 

He lifts our joined hands to my eye level and laughs, “I thought so! Were we not?” 

I stare at our hands a moment, then I laugh too, thinking about it, “Guess we are. Dumb question.” 

“Nah,” he sits up and shakes his head. I sit up with him to look at him, “Better than us being on completely different pages, yeah?” I nod instead of replying, and in turn he taps my nose gently, “Ask all the questions you want, Lo. I’m always listenin’, I’ve got all the answers!” 

I punch his arm gently with my free hand, “Don’t be lame, you absolutely do not.” 

Nonetheless, I find myself wanting to hear his answer to all my questions. Even if they’re stupid…. Maybe I just like listening to his voice. 

**Another month passes** . Neither of us is willing to move to fast and he still sleeps in the spare room of the farm house, though I do wonder if maybe it would be alright to ask him if he could sleep with me. Maybe not before we so much as kiss, though. 

One morning I wake up,, to a less than pleasant feeling and noise. A scream. Mason. 

“Logan!” 

I don’t think before I vault out of the bed, snatching my knife from the bedside table and tearing downstairs, jumping over the couch to shorten my time to get to the back door. When I do, I nearly burst it open to take in the scene before me. 

Mason is pinned by a dead one, holding it back with one hand and trying with his other to grab his machete, just out of reach. He must have dropped it when he noticed it inside the fence. 

“Logan!” he screams again and it snaps me from my thoughts. I run forward, pausing only to get momentum when I kick the thing as hard as I can off him. It falls off him, the lack of life probably making its grip and overall strength pretty short lived. 

Mason quickly moves away, picking up his machete and standing up. It’s over, though, as I step forward and stab the top of its skull while it’s still down. It falls limp and I huff as I take the knife back. 

I turn to him, immediately dropping the knife again, to the ground this time instead of a brain, however. I step over it to him, grabbing both his shoulders with my arms, looking over his face carefully, eyebrows knitting together in worry. 

“It didn’t get you, did it? Are you okay?” I ask, speaking as quickly as my heart is racing. If he’s hurt, I don’t know what I’ll do, he can’t be hurt… 

“Hey, hey, ‘s okay, Lo! I’m okay. Ya' saved me,” he laughs, ruffling my hair with one hand, “Just in time, too!” 

“Don’t say that-!” I furrow my eyebrows more, “What if I’d taken any longer? You could have been hurt or-or-!” I can’t finish my sentence, instead pausing and shaking my head, dropping my hands from his shoulders and instead hugging him, “I don’t want to lose you, idiot.” 

I hear his machete hit the ground too, before his arms find their way around me too, “I’m not going anywhere, Lo. Even if I mess up and drop my only means of survival-" I hate how casually he says that, “I’ve got some guy who comes to my rescue, don’t I?” With that he moves back and pokes my nose again, “I mean you, by the way.” 

I roll my eyes and finally move away from him, picking the knife up, “I could assume… don’t let me make you too soft. Maybe one day I’ll need a savior or somethin',” I laugh, though I’m serious. I don’t want him to start letting his guard down just because I’m around. In case one day I’m not. 

I look over, where I can assume the dead one came from. There’s a spot where the fence seems to have gotten weak and collapsed. It must have knocked it over. I sigh. I guess seven months of multiple human sized creatures all fighting against it must have worn it down. 

I glance down, realizing that in my rush to get out here I’m still in the clothes I sleep in; and turn back to Mason, “I’m getting dressed before we fix that.” 

Without anything else I start to walk back inside, though before I can he grabs my arm. I pause, looking at him with one eyebrow raised, “Yeah?” 

He quickly pulls me close to him and kisses me quick before stepping back again, “Thanks for savin’ me, anyway. Won’t happen again.” 

I blink a few times as he turns away towards the house. Slowly, I run my thumb over my lips. 

That’s the first time he’s kissed me. 

I look down and smile before I walk back inside as well. At least him nearly dying had some sort of good outcome. 

Later that month, we’re sat in a back part of the farm’s yard with a fire lit, cooking one of the older chickens over it. It had been his time, and it’s not like we could let the poor thing go to waste. 

Mason talks around a mouth full of food, “Isn’t this a little messed up? Eating their brethren so close to the coop?” He points with the leg he’s cooked towards the coop. 

I roll my eyes, “Don’t talk with your mouth full, gross!” He sticks his tongue out at me in response, “Anyway. They’ll live.” 

He chuckles and we fall into a comfortable silence again, before I break it. 

“Hey, M?” I mutter, looking up at him. He hums in response. I move my feet around in the dirt, “I love you.” 

He stares at me for a moment and I look down, shaking my head, “Sorry, maybe that was too soon, I don’t-" 

“No, no!” he cuts me off, leaning forward and taking my arm, “Not at all. I was chewing. I love you too, Logan.” 

I look back up, meeting his eyes, and smile, “’M glad.” 

Instead of speaking again, I lean forward and carefully kiss him again. 

**Almost two years into** the apocalypse and eighteen months into knowing Mason, I wake up next to nothing. Slightly panicked, I sit up straight, only to find a note on his pillow. 

**Gone for a run. See you when I get home <3 **

**-Mason**

I furrow my eyebrows but sigh dejectedly. We almost always go on runs together, safety in numbers and all… 

However, it’s too late to stop him, so I go about my daily pattern without him and keep my eye on the door. 

He doesn’t get home until the sun is setting and my nerves are starting to peak. As the door opens I jump up from the couch and throw my arms around him. 

“Did ya’ miss me?” He asks and laughs, but hugs me back no less. I nod into his shoulder. 

“You’ve been gone for hours…” I whine and he laughs, “I know, I’m sorry. I thought the shop I was going to was closer.” 

“Where’d you go, anyway?” I ask, stepping back and pulling him by the arms back towards the couch to sit. He must have been on his feet all day. 

“Well, back when I was wondering I remembered passing a jewelry store, so I went back there.” 

I raise an eyebrow as I sit, though he keeps standing, “What’d you get?” 

He smiles and shrugs, “Promise not to laugh?” 

Only getting more confused and curious by the second, I nod, “Yeah, I promise. Just tell me!” 

“Alright, well…” he sighs before reaching into his back pocket and dropping down onto one knee. My mouth falls open, “I know it’s kinda dumb, but I was thinking maybe after this whole apocalypse thing you and I… y'know. Get married or whatever.” 

I stare at him in complete and utter shock as he opens the box that contains to silver rings. 

“Mason, that’s… I mean, my God…” I pause a moment then look up at him and realize he looks quite nervous, and I quickly nod, leaning forward and pulling him into a tight hug. 

“Of course I’ll marry you when dead people stop trying to eat us. Nothing would make me happier.” 

We kiss again, then, and he puts one of the rings on my hand, the other one his. I kiss his briefly and shake my head, “You’re so unbelievably lame, and I’m so unbelievably glad.” 

**Another few months went by** , and life is… good, even. Happy. 

But I wake up to another scream. This one isn’t my name, just... screaming. Just as I did last time, I launch out of bed, knife in hand just as quickly and flying through the house once more, over the couch and out the back door. 

It feels like time stops. 

The fence collapsed again, and another one must have come through. He’s by the coop with chicken feed spilled out around him, but this time he’s not fighting back. He’s face down in the grass and it’s... 

I stop thinking. 

I run towards it and dig my knife as deep as it will go into the damned things head. I shove it off him only to pin it under me and continue stabbing it. Over, and over, and over.... 

I don’t stop until it’s unrecognizable, and only then do I finally stand up and turn to Mason once more. He’s face down in the grass and there’ a large chunk of flesh gone from his neck and shoulder. He’s not moving. Or breathing. 

I drop my knife and then fall to my knees, carefully rolling him over onto his back, shaking. His eyes are closed, and there’s blood on his lips. 

“H... Hey, Mason, wake up, love,” I say quietly, knowing full well that it's useless. My lip quavers, “Come on, idiot, don’t leave now.” 

He doesn’t move or respond. I don’t expect him to. I lower my head and choke out a sob. 

“Okay. It’s okay. You just-” I rest one fist on his chest and nod, “Just rest, okay?” 

I bury him that afternoon, just outside the fence, using some sticks to mark it. I don’t stay much longer than that, returning to the house to make sure the animals are fed before I return to my bed and don’t move for the rest of the day, instead falling back asleep. 

**I wake up while it’s still dark** out and the bed is too empty. No sound of him snoring, no arms around me, no... I sit up and shake my head. 

I pull myself out of bed and quietly get dressed, uncomfortable disrupting the silence. I walk downstairs, unlocking the front door before I walk back through the kitchen, slinging the bag of chicken feed over my shoulder and then walking out the door. 

I pour the entire thing into the coop, hoping maybe they’ll hold over until someone else finds this farm. Maybe. 

I turn to the barn and sigh, shaking my head. Hopefully the feed for them Mason and I started putting in there for the winter will hold them over. 

I have no intention of coming back to this farm. 

I go back inside only to take my crossbow from the rack on the wall by the door before turning right back around and going back out, stepping over the collapsed fence part to get out of the yard. I walk towards the makeshift grave and, once getting there, fall to sit at the foot. 

“Alright,” I say after taking a large breath, “You said you had all the answers, didn’t you? What am I supposed to do now, huh? How can you answer my questions when you aren’t even here?” 

I stare at the sticks, tied to be in the shape of a cross like he’ll somehow give me a sign from the grave. He doesn’t. 

I lower my eyes again and begin to cry more. 

Remembering every moment with him from meeting him, the night on the porch, officiating out relationship. The first kiss we shared, first ‘I love you,’ that stupid promise of getting married after the apocalypse go solved. 

Because we were going to make it through the end of the world together. Survive, together. 

Instead he had to go and screw it all up by dying on me. 

I wipe my eyes and sigh. 

Behind me, I hear groaning. A dead one. 

I tighten my lips and with one hand, I reach out and touch the cross of sticks. I nod slowly, just once, “Maybe I’ll see you, huh?” I close my eyes and my hand holding the crossbow lets go, letting it fall to the ground. I listen as I hear it walk closer to me, but I don’t move. Instead, I tighten my hand around the cross and speak again, one last time, “I love you, Mason.” 


End file.
